The 6 Most Bizarre Jurassic Park Toys

If you grew up in the ’90s there’s a very good chance that that you have some of these Jurassic Park toys gathering dust in your attic and they may well be worth some money to you. While the Jurassic Park toy rights have changed hands a few times since the release of The Lost World line, those toys associated with the first two JP films, produced, by Kenner have a special place in the hearts of many. Known for their excellent playability and durability, the Kenner Jurassic Park toys had a penchant for the bizarre (and that’s not even counting the strange Chaos Effect spin-off line which featured all manner of hybrid dinosaurs).

Some of the old Jurassic Park toys have aged quite well. As for others, please do read on…

We will start at the most movie accurate and work our way down (Trust me, it’s all downhill from here):

6. Alan Grant

I have to say I think the Alan Grant figure stands the test of time pretty well, bearing a fairly decent likeness to Sam Neill (if he were a bodybuilder that is).

Interestingly, the figure came paired with a little Pteranodon and a backpack mounted catapult! Remember that bit in the movie where he launched a pterosaur into the air to distract a marauding carnivore? Me neither. Also, notice the little grey device with the nuclear bomb logo on it. Why the hell would Grant be carrying one of those? Oh that’s right. He’s a scientist. Everyone knows scientists are mad and carry thermonuclear devices around with them for when they need to annihilate a continent or fuel an intergalactic starship.

Now, what I want to know is when are we getting a photo-realistic toy of Dr. Weir from Event Horizon?

Sam Neill – traumatising kids at a Christmas morning near you!

5. Ian Malcolm

The second Jurassic Park movie spawned some pretty out there toys too. Never one to be outdone, everyone’s favourite chaotician, Dr. Ian Malcolm, got a figure that was every bit as ‘eccentric’ as the character it portrayed.

“Haters gonna hate…”

What made the hang-glider particularly surreal was that the toy was released in advance of the movie. Fans who had only read the Lost World novel at this point were instantly perplexed as to how Ian, with his broken leg, was expected to operate a freaking hang-glider! This is of course, ignoring the awkward fact that he actually died in the first book too.

Common sense prevailed and the hang-glider was completely left out of the film. That is, until Jurassic Park 3 came out and they decided to use a variation of this stupid idea not once, but twice!

4. Dennis Nedry

Say what you will about the Ian Malcolm hang-glider, but at least they managed to capture the winning smirk and cool shades that typify the very essence of Jeff Goldblum as a character, which is more than can be said for Dennis Nedry, who went from second runner up in the Jabba the Hutt lookalike contest…

“A fat joke, really?”

….to this badass gunslinger, complete with venomous spittle-proof shades (I’m pretty sure he shows up in one of the Expendables movies at some point):

“Aint no lil’ runt hat-wearing dino gonna spit in my eyes!”

Despite having NOTHING to do with its namesake, the figure gets many bonus points for having removable ‘dino damage’ arms and being paired with a little Dilophosaurus figurine so you could just about re-enact that famous scene where Lardo gets his comeuppance.

That is, provided your parents could afford to buy you one of THESE!

3. Bush Devil Tracker Jeep

Ah yes, back in the good ol’ days when it wasn’t illegal for box art to blatantly misrepresent the toy inside. You have to love the gleeful look on little Timmy’s face as he strangles a shoddily drawn Velociraptor while Grant appears to be yelling, “Cut it out!” at the little sadomasochist bastard. For those of you that think that’s a little bit harsh, riddle me this; in the entire Jurassic Park trilogy how many times do we see or so much as hear mention of Tim and Lex’s parents? The poor kids never really stood a chance when you think about it; raised by an insane grandfather whose life ambition was to buy an island paradise off the coast of Costa Rica, fill it with dangerous dinosaurs and then pay his staff wages so stingy that they have no choice but to betray him at the first available opportunity.

Another odd aspect of this box art is that you have a fairly generic looking soldier man firing a rocket propelled grenade (cleverly disguised as a ‘tranq-missile’ – because those like, totally exist and stuff) at deafeningly close range to Grant’s head and directly into a slumbering brachiosaur’s rear end (citation needed).

Moral of the story: BUY IT NOW!

2. Capture Copter

For all its action-packed zeal, the Bush Devil Tracker box art pales in comparison to the madness that is the ‘Capture Coptor’.

Now, for the life of me I cannot even begin to guess what sort of dinosaur that is in the picture, but it looks like it’s waving at its captor or at the very least trying to playfully fondle some balls – as you do when caught in a big net by a palaeontologist so drunk on his own power that he painted teeth onto his helicopter before firing ‘tranq missiles’ all over the place.

Makes you think that a remake of Dino-Riders is in order.

If your childhood did not look EXACTLY like this, you should sue your parents.

1. Electronic Baryonyx

Our tour of freakish toys of yesteryear is nearing its unnatural conclusion and we have saved the most ghastly and offensive excuse for a child’s plaything ‘til last.

Before we subject you to it, let me tell you a bit about Baryonyx. It lived in England, it was the size of a bus, it liked to eat fish and it has not done anything to wrong anyone over the best part of 100 million years. Except apparently the toy designers at Kenner back in the early ’90s whom must have had their families murdered and defiled by a rogue time travelling Baryonyx. Why else would they take a creature that looked like this:

Baryonyx walkeri by Nobu Tamura.

And decide that in addition to being left out of the Jurassic Park movies (fun fact: it was in an early draft of the Jurassic Park 3 script, but was eventually replaced by Spinosaurus) it should be forever remembered as this:

Note how it’s hands are positioned so that it may pray for a quick and relatively painless death.

Curiously, this Baryonyx toy is quite rare and therefore valuable to hard core collectors. The cause of this rarity is no doubt the fact that any child given the burden of owning such a fugly toy probably made it their business to conveniently ‘lose’ it at the soonest possible opportunity.

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About The Author

Sean is Geek Ireland's resident dinosaur enthusiast, having been fascinated by prehistory since a time before he could read (it's not as long ago as you might think!) - he recently completed a degree in Dinosaur Paleobiology.
In his spare time, Sean writes for Geek Ireland predominantly about science fiction and monster movies. A sucker for a "so bad it's good" creature feature, he can often be found rooting through the bargain bins of DVD shops, looking for 'diamonds in the rough'.